Hugh MacDiarmid |
To forge a future for
Scotland
In the 20th century Scottish
culture was fast disappearing –
After WW1 theatres, variety and musical
hall were hugely popular – a peoples theatre. The shows though were a dumbing down and a
caricature, unreal version of Scotland – with figures of fun such as Tommy
Lorne and comic Harry Lauder .
This marginalization of Scottish culture
was part of an Anglicisation of Scotland. Scottish literature of the time was parochial
and presented a sentimental and religious country - such as the author Ian
MacLaren.
Significantly before the war Home Rule Bills
were passed for both Ireland and Scotland but were put aside during the war –
what was Home Rule anyway – and why has it been ignored for 100 years?
Up in Montrose,
Kinross, was a young reporter called Christopher Grieve, who later
chose a Celtic name to write under - Hugh MacDiarmid - along with his wife Peggy.
Hugh wrote of the gulf between this
sentimental Scotland and the reality of its economic suppression. Hugh wanted
to write of an authentic Scottish voice.
The writers in Montrose were inspired by a
new cultural confidence and by Irish voices of the time such as Joyce and
Yeats. At this time in 1918 the Irish over threw English imperial rule. It was
sad they had to fight so hard and many civilians died.
(Meanwhile the BBCs John Reith aspired to
have everyone speaking correct English and English elocution lessons were
popular at that time.
MacDiarmid found a friend and neighbour in Violet Jacob, who became a socialist
and also wrote in Scots and English and she was deeply affected by her 20 year
old sons death in the war.
Celtic warrior Hugh MacDiarmid understood
that the Scots language would help build an Independent Scotland and to forge a
true and real future identity for Scotland – a Scottish Renaissance , a
blueprint for a modern Scotland.
Later he went away to seclusion to write
his most famous poem – The Drunk man Looks at a Thistle – he wrote about his
definition of what is Scotland; Russian poetry and scarps of songs.
The aim was to structure the world to suit
the people who live there and not a culture imposed from elsewhere.
There has to be a social and cultural
revolution too. Hugh retreated to the
very edge of Scotland, to the Shetlands from Orkney it is a 8 hour crossing …..and
his ideas spread….
(Scotland: The Promised Land)
1920 Montrose was the cultural capital of Scotland.
MacDiarmid Total confidence that independent Scotland can work for the
advantage of the people that live here.
Violet
Jacob – lost her son at WW1 at 20. She became a socialist and also wrote
poems in bot Scottish and English.
William
Lamb
sculptor.
Wiila Muir – Radical, novelist and translator. Women: An Inquiry is a book-length feminist essay.
Edwin
Muir
– Poet,
Edward
Baird;
Tom McDonald.
Tom McDonald.
Helen Cruikshanks – The movement spread to St Andrews
and to Costorphine Edinburgh, , where writers and artists now gathered. Helen
rekindled the Scottish cultural scene.
Hamish Henderson, Poet and songwriter, who wrote the song Freedom Come All Ye.
James Leslie Mitchell – 1932 Sunset Song (Lewis Grassic
Gibbon) partly written in Scots of crafting community of Angus and the Mearns –
the breakthrough novel of the Renaissance. and the New York Times book of the
week.
Mitchell became
great friends with Hugh, and they published an anthology together. – Scottish
scene.
MacDiarmid’s aim was to have
confidence in a modern Scotland – who are we? He stood on the shoulders of
those who fought for Scotland’s voice.